Development and evaluation of a 3D mobile application for learning manual therapy in the physiotherapy laboratory

• Published in: Computers and education Vol. 69; pp. 96 - 108
• Main Authors: Noguera, José M., Jiménez, Juan J., Osuna-Pérez, M. Catalina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.11.2013
• Subjects: 3D volume rendering; Applications in subject areas; Health care professional education; M-learning; Physical therapy; Applications in subject areas; M-learning; Physical therapy; 3D volume rendering; Health care professional education
• ISSN: 0360-1315; 1873-782X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compedu.2013.07.007

Teaching manual therapy is one of the most relevant issues in a physiotherapy course. However, knowledge of anatomy is considered fundamental for an effective instruction of this topic. Students should be able to refresh this knowledge while practicing manipulative techniques in the teaching laboratory in an efficient way. In this paper, we present a novel anatomy learning application for mobile devices and describe the successful embedding of such tool into a practical manual therapy course in a laboratory. This application provides students with interactive 3D visualizations of medical imaging on easy-to-carry hand-held devices. We also report two evaluations of this tool. The first one was conducted to evaluate the students' and professors' grade of satisfaction when using our tool. The second one was carried out to determine whether the tool has better learning outcomes than standard methods of teaching anatomy. Students and professors rated the proposed m-learning tool very positively. We also found significant relevance in learning outcomes through the use of this tool. We can conclude that the developed application could be a useful tool for studying manual therapy, and that it could be integrated into the existing physiotherapy curricula. •A 3D mobile tool for teaching anatomy at the physiotherapy laboratory is proposed.•Mobile learning tools are interesting in places where it is not possible to use PCs.•We use 2D/3D views to teach the precise hands location required for manual therapy.•Student's and teacher's opinions are collected with evaluation questionnaires.•A crossover posttest evaluation with physiotherapy students is also reported.